


What happened (or didn't happen) in Redcliffe

by Lianren



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Gen, I have no idea what am I doing, I miss my not-yet-inquisitor cinnamon roll so much, Lavellan POV, Life is hard, he hasn't figured the leading thing yet, he's still just a slightly angsty cinnamon roll, time-travel mentioned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-12
Updated: 2016-12-12
Packaged: 2018-09-08 05:42:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8832664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lianren/pseuds/Lianren
Summary: "He imagined Dorian would have showed no hesitation to relive the horrors of that night; the mage might have even been able to spice the tale up with a joke or two. He, on the other hand, the Herald of Andraste in person, shuddered to even think of it."
The Herald Lavellan makes a report on his time-travel experience. No shipping (just some early Cassandra/M!Lavellan feels)





	

„Now, speak” Cassandra demanded, standing in front of him, both hands placed firmly on the tabletop. At her left-hand side stood Josephine, quill in hand, ready to write everything down; Leliana and Cullen were also present, both watching him attentively.  


He was seated at the war table, on the only chair in the room; he wanted nothing more but to be elsewhere. He sighed inwardly. The duty must be done, the sooner the better. There was no one who could do this task in his stead. (Although he imagined Dorian would have showed no hesitation to relive the horrors of that night; the mage might have even been able to spice the tale up with a joke or two. He, the Herald of Andraste in person, shuddered to even think of it.)  


What he wouldn’t have given to have this unfortunate mission reported while they were on their way back to Haven, while adrenaline still pulsed through his veins! (And while they were all mounted, all equal, not here in this room, his fellow members of the Inquisition looking down on him like a flock of hawks.) But the matters he was about to speak of were far too important to be trifled with. They could’ve been easily overheard on the way. So here he was, eager to get it over with as fast as he could.  


“Let me skip the introduction and get right to the point” he begun, struggling not to let his distress show, glancing quickly at those who were not there to witness his brief audience with the magister.  


He cleared his throat.  


“Alexius used a magical amulet to send us into the future. 9:42 Dragon, as future-Enchanter Fiona informed us.”  


He heard Josephine’s quill scratch against parchment.  


“Where did he send you?”  


“To… to the Redcliffe castle. Into the dungeons.”  


“So it didn’t only move you through time, but also through space” Leliana inquired. She sounded a little amazed.  


Her tone made him feel uneasy. She didn’t realize how wrong it was to be amazed by this. She was completely oblivious to the terror that it had brought… that it could have brought on her.  


“Yes” he just nodded, withstanding the grimace that threatened to show on his face.  


He explained in as much detail as he remembered how the castle was in ruin and all but covered in red lyrium. What seemed to pique the Inquisition’s curiosity the most was the information he and Dorian obtained from their future selves.  


“If empress Celene was assassinated, it is likely that her assassination is being plotted right now” Leliana stated, with a tiny hint of alarm seeping through her otherwise level voice.  


“When did it happen?” Cassandra asked, frowning.  


“I… don’t know. I don’t recall anyone speaking of the exact date” he shrugged.  


“What?” She exclaimed, glancing at him with disbelief, “and you didn’t ask? It… it might have been the most important information we could have obtained!" She set her hands heavily on the table. And as if that wasn’t a sufficient manifestation of what she thought of this sort of answer, she leaned above the tabletop, closing the distance between their faces.  


“It is not possible that no one has spoken of this! Focus!”  


“I don’t know” he shuddered and had to avert his eyes as he remembered _what_ had distracted him from asking important questions. In place of Cassandra’s angered features hovering over him, his imagination supplied him with a face corrupted with lyrium, pale as if already dead. This one was desperate rather than enraged. And although a few weeks ago it would have seemed insane, now he much preferred to face the angry one.  


“-do you realize how much is at stake here?!” her voice brought him abruptly back to reality. (His preferences didn’t seem to help him much confronted with an actual raging Seeker.)  


“I do not know” he said again, attempting to sound more persuasive this time “if I did, I would have told you. I swear” he straightened slightly in his chair, fighting images that flooded his consciousness and the feeling of detachment that followed them. His vision became a little blurry. He blinked. He felt a headache begin to stir in his temples.  


But Cassandra would have none of his explanation. She seemed positively furious, now that he dared to stand against her.  


“Cassandra” he heard Leliana say, clear warning in her voice, although it was barely more audible than a whisper. “Don’t forget he’s our ally” she reminded silently, but in a voice that left no room for discussion.  


He was glad for their spymaster’s timely interruption, but it didn’t seem to help with his inner demons. On the contrary; he couldn't help but remember Leliana’s Blight-corrupted face, her lifeless eyes and voice rough from screaming in pain. It did little to improve the ghastly, lyrium-corrupted landscape that his mind forced him to re-watch. (He was starting to panic. He felt entirely too close for comfort to losing control over this.)  


“I don’t believe it” Cassandra said, this time quietly, but there was venom in her voice. He forced himself to look at her, and he found that it was too much – her real face mixing with the one imprinted in his memory, the pressure, the despair, all the emotions, threatening to show on his face all at once…  


“Then don’t” he snapped at her, and stood up so abruptly that no one managed to react.  


He was gone before they realized what had just occured.  


He stormed angrily through the hall. 

To be honest, he regretted leaving the minute the door closed behind him. He knew there was no escape from this duty, and delaying could only make it worse. But he paced on nonetheless.  


He needed a minute to breathe. To compose himself and to make the terrifying images go away, or at least subside to a bearable degree.  


They didn’t know – he reflected. They didn’t realize. For them it was a just future that would never happen, as the future-Leliana had bluntly put it. And all the gods be thanked for that! He did his best to spare them the experience, or even the sight of it. But their ignorance didn’t make coping with this unnatural situation any easier for him.  


He hadn’t walked far away. It felt as if even a minute hadn’t passed since his departure, and he could already hear footsteps following his path. They sounded familiar; heavily armored feet against hard, stone floor.  


He sighed, but turned around to face Cassandra.  


“Alright, I yield” she spoke before he had a chance to, raising her arms in a non-aggressive gesture, her voice calm for a change. “And I apologize” she added, without so much as a quiver in her voice. “Anger makes it easy to forget that you never gave us a single reason to distrust you.”  


It startled him a little, though really it shouldn’t have. The Seeker was well-known to posses that unique ability of making admitting her own mistakes seem so damn easy.  


“It is all just wrong” he heard himself confess before he could stop himself. Why did he even say that? In hope of justifying his tantrum? But as he had already started, he found that he couldn’t stop. “No living creature should ever experience the future before it happens. And I can’t even compare it to being lost in the Fade… because it was real” his voice trembled at the last word. Creators, what a fool he was making of himself. Here he stood, the blessed Herald, worshiped by most shemlen within at least a few miles’ range…  


Silence fell upon them. For once, Cassandra didn’t appear keen on breaking it. He risked a glimpse at her. Although her face didn’t express any emotion, he couldn’t stand her gaze for too long. It somehow still felt scolding.  


Purely out of the need to break the silence, he cleared his throat.  


“It also seemed not real at the same time” he resumed in a whisper. He drew a shaky breath. Creators, he felt as if he was just about to break. “It is… against every rule ever established, Andrastian, Dalish, or whatever else!” he ranted, desperately trying to at least appear less pathetic than he felt, and raised his head to meet her eyes.   


It came with a surprise – it didn’t provoke a flood of memories as before. Apparently, turning despair into anger served quite well to drive away the visions. He hoped he could keep it up at least until finishing his report.  


“Your indignation is well placed, Herald” Cassandra admitted, “but it does little to help the cause.” she stated the plain, painful truth.  


He sighed heavily. His face fell.  


“You’re right. I know.”  


They simply gazed at each other for a moment before he averted his eyes again. He imagined his face must have spoken volumes; at least judging by the Seeker’s expression, which had changed from determined to puzzled, then maybe even slightly compassionate.  


He was just about to head back to the war room himself when he felt Cassandra’s gloved hand on his arm.  


“Come” she said, her voice a tad warmer, pulling him slightly back towards the corridor. He obliged, without giving it much thought. His mind didn’t feel up to producing any coherent thoughts at the moment.  


He let her lead him. It made him feel extremely weak, especially after all that he had just (quite involuntary) shared with her. But weariness took over him, and he discovered that he didn’t mind at all. He focused on staying composed throughout the rest of the evening.  


No one felt further need to interrupt or question him as he resumed his report and plunged into a detailed description of the layout of the castle and the enemies they fought on the way. That was something he was used to reporting. All went smoothly up to the part where they had dealt with the future-Alexius; he was faced only with some minor and simple questions concerning the nature of the door the magister had been hiding behind.  


The atmosphere of the meeting seemed to have changed. They were all watching him a little bit more carefully, thinking on their questions took them a few additional seconds. As if they expected him to throw a tantrum at any slightly oppressive word.  


He didn’t care. For tonight, they might even consider him insane. It didn’t matter. How worse could it get, anyway, since they already hailed him as a prophet of some frantic shemlen deity without needing even the slightest sign of his consent? Tomorrow, he decided, it would matter. Tomorrow would be for making up for his blunder, for setting appearances right and making proper impressions. Today… today he had yet to brace himself for the most difficult part of his report.  


And there it was. He knew simply no more details concerning the spell which Dorian made up. There was nothing else he could report but the part where the Tevinter mage opened the rift leading back to the present, and then…  


“They sacrificed themselves, delaying the onslaught enough for us to get through.”  


He didn’t intend for such a dramatic turn of phrase. He stared intently at an odd-shaped brick in the wall at the far end of the room, trying desperately to summon a spark of righteous anger once again. But he was too distracted. It didn’t come. The more he tried not to think of what he had just said, the more his mental walls seemed to crumble.  


He heard that Josephine stopped scribbling. He risked a quick glance at his audience.  


Every single pair of eyes in the room was on him, but they didn’t look half as horrified as he felt. And that was perfectly fine. He wanted it that way – he wanted them not to understand that those he spoke of and their real selves could have been the same people. He knew it made a difference – let them know, but not feel the connection.  


He wanted them not to realize – it was the most sensible choice, so, unsurprisingly, the most difficult path lay ahead of it.  


“I believe my report’s finished” he managed to conclude in a stiff, indifferent voice. He eyed his council briefly, then got up and made his way to the door. He didn’t make haste as before, but luckily, although provided enough time to do so, no one decided to stop him from leaving the war room.  


He almost ran straight to his quarters. He let his breathing go all ragged after he was sure that the door was safely closed. His back plastered to its cold, wooden surface, he slid down until he was sitting on the floor, then hid his face in his hands. Here he was, the blessed Herald, the fearless one who came through to protect them all…  


The Inquisition tactfully left him alone for the remaining part of the evening.  


No such luck next morning, though.

**Author's Note:**

> So basically I've romanced Cassandra, but I'm too poorly organized to write an entire multi-chapter fic about it ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)  
> And perhaps that's for the best, since right now I'm just testing whether my English is understandable for anyone other than my fellow countrymen. So - see any mistakes? Do point them out! I'd be very thankful for constructive criticism!


End file.
